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Nicholas Oyekunle

ally_uk

By ally_uk
in The Saints

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trousers

trousers

Posted
Posted (edited)

Whatever happened to the time whereby the club declared that the U21s/u23s were rebranded as "the B team" with the expectation that anyone in that squad could step up to the first team squad if circumstances dictated it a requirement...? If there was ever a time that a centre forward needed to transition from the 'B team' to the first team it's now...

Edited by trousers
  • Like 1
coalman

coalman

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, trousers said:

Whatever happened to the time whereby the club declared that the U21s/u23s were rebranded as "the B team" with the expectation that anyone in that squad could step up to the first team squad if circumstances dictated it a requirement...? If there was ever a time that a centre forward needed to transition from the 'B team' to the first team it's now...

I think the clue is in the usage of the word "rebranded". It was a branding exercise rather than a change in reality. More wishful thinking from our management.

  • Like 1
Baird of the land

Baird of the land

Posted
Posted

Wouldn't be against the idea of having him on the bench if he's scoring for B team. Especially as that would free up Downs to get minutes for the B team, which is exactly where he should be until he proves his scoring metal there.

HnycS

HnycS

Posted
Posted

Surely if 18 year olds can break into Liverpool and Man City squads, it has to be an option Saints can explore. Apart from Arma Saints have zero goal threat up front, literally nothing to loose. Who knows might unearth the next Alan Shearer, although by the time he debuted I think the entire fan base knew he was going to make it.

WALK DMC

WALK DMC

Posted
Posted

According to Transfermarkt he is 1.75m tall. In old money that is 5ft 9in, so we can add him to our list of short forwards along with Archer and Armstrong.

  • Like 1
VectisSaint

VectisSaint

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, WALK DMC said:

According to Transfermarkt he is 1.75m tall. In old money that is 5ft 9in, so we can add him to our list of short forwards along with Archer and Armstrong.

Quite, hardly a replacement for Ross (but he's probably better than all of our other short-arses).

Wade Garrett

Wade Garrett

Posted
Posted
On 05/10/2025 at 21:17, Lighthouse said:

Age group football. If he was good enough, he'd be playing.

In the same way that Le Tissier and Shearer weren't good enough before their debuts?

Lighthouse

Lighthouse

Posted
Posted
33 minutes ago, Wade Garrett said:

In the same way that Le Tissier and Shearer weren't good enough before their debuts?

In the same way as literally every professional footballer there’s ever been, if we’re being accurate.

Wade Garrett

Wade Garrett

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

In the same way as literally every professional footballer there’s ever been, if we’re being accurate.

Yes, which is why I took issue with your post in the first place.

trousers

trousers

Posted
Posted (edited)

Is it me or are we as a club more 'protective' of our younger talent than other clubs these days? Might be false memory syndrome but I'm sure we used to quite regularly have a 'youngster' on the bench and give our academy players more 1st team experience in general. 

I guess it happens less now because we've had a bloated squad for several seasons but it annoys me that a prolific 18 year old is seemingly not even considered for 1st team exposure, just in case they have a bad experience and it sets them back, or such like.

There are plenty of players across the footballing world that debut in top leagues at the age of 16, 17, 18.

Given our dearth of centre forward options, I say we should chuck this 18 year old lad into the deep end and see what he's got. It's not as if he's a child. 

Edited by trousers
  • Like 2
HnycS

HnycS

Posted
Posted
On 05/10/2025 at 16:49, trousers said:

Whatever happened to the time whereby the club declared that the U21s/u23s were rebranded as "the B team" with the expectation that anyone in that squad could step up to the first team squad if circumstances dictated it a requirement...? If there was ever a time that a centre forward needed to transition from the 'B team' to the first team it's now...

This happened;

"Amongst the many terrible calls I could list the icing on the cake was the hideous tackle by Michael Keane on 18-year-old full débutante Jake Hesketh that forced the youngster off injured. As clear cut a red card challenge as you will see, not even adjudged a free kick by the league’s worst official."

It's not without risk, so maybe not against Everton?

 

Lighthouse

Lighthouse

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, trousers said:

I guess it happens less now because we've had a bloated squad for several seasons but it annoys me that a prolific 18 year old is seemingly not even considered for 1st team exposure, just in case they have a bad experience and it sets them back, or such like.

There are plenty of players across the footballing world that debut in top leagues at the age of 16, 17, 18.

Given our dearth of centre forward options, I say we should chuck this 18 year old lad into the deep end and see what he's got. It's not as if he's a child. 

Off the top of my head Tino, Lavia, Dibling, Larios, Edozie, Robinson and Mara have all played for us as teenagers in the SR era. Broja, ABK and Baz could only just have turned 20, too.

hypochondriac

hypochondriac

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Not a clue what your point is.

His point is that you can't dismiss a promising youngster as not yet good enough until he's been given an opportunity to show that. Given the woeful lack of good options up front, the suggestion is he's given an opportunity in case he steps up and shows us something better than we have. If not then nothing much is lost given that the existing options aren't really working anyway. 

  • Like 2
Lighthouse

Lighthouse

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

His point is that you can't dismiss a promising youngster as not yet good enough until he's been given an opportunity to show that. Given the woeful lack of good options up front, the suggestion is he's given an opportunity in case he steps up and shows us something better than we have. If not then nothing much is lost given that the existing options aren't really working anyway. 

Yes you can. The coaches who've been watching these kids training and playing day in, day out will have an excellent idea if they are good enough to make the step up to senior football. So far the answer with Oyekunle seems to be no, hopefully that might change in the next couple of years.

  • Like 1
hypochondriac

hypochondriac

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Yes you can. The coaches who've been watching these kids training and playing day in, day out will have an excellent idea if they are good enough to make the step up to senior football. So far the answer with Oyekunle seems to be no, hopefully that might change in the next couple of years.

We don't know do we. It could be that they make the call next week to stick him on the bench for all we know. There's obviously an element of expertise from the coaches but there's normally an element of trust too and a desire to give someone a chance with that desire differing to a lesser or greater extent at different clubs. It may be that we think he could be good enough given the opportunity but the pathway as not yet been clear to give him that. Given how much of a flop Downs has been maybe they will cast a wider net. 

trousers

trousers

Posted
Posted
20 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Yes you can. The coaches who've been watching these kids training and playing day in, day out will have an excellent idea if they are good enough to make the step up to senior football. So far the answer with Oyekunle seems to be no, hopefully that might change in the next couple of years.

Your faith in the quality of our coaching staff is admirable... ;)

  • Haha 4
Lighthouse

Lighthouse

Posted
Posted
25 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

We don't know do we. It could be that they make the call next week to stick him on the bench for all we know. There's obviously an element of expertise from the coaches but there's normally an element of trust too and a desire to give someone a chance with that desire differing to a lesser or greater extent at different clubs. It may be that we think he could be good enough given the opportunity but the pathway as not yet been clear to give him that. Given how much of a flop Downs has been maybe they will cast a wider net. 

If they decide that NO is worthy of a place on the bench for the Swansea game then great. Until such time I can only assume that he has been deemed not yet ready for Championship football. There's no such thing as the BIB at a club like Saints. If you're good enough you'll get opportunities, as Dibling and Robinson have showed.

What I don't agree with is the assertion that he can't be any worse than DD. We as fans haven't seen anywhere near enough of either to make that call.

9 minutes ago, trousers said:

Your faith in the quality of our coaching staff is admirable... ;)

Which youth players do you feel they have misjudged?

sledger

sledger

Posted
Posted

this is where the old combination league is such a loss,you would have played them in that and they would have played against experienced pros so you would already have a handle on them,all this academy football teaches them nothing and thats why they get loaned out

  • Like 2
hypochondriac

hypochondriac

Posted
Posted
37 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

If they decide that NO is worthy of a place on the bench for the Swansea game then great. Until such time I can only assume that he has been deemed not yet ready for Championship football. There's no such thing as the BIB at a club like Saints. If you're good enough you'll get opportunities, as Dibling and Robinson have showed.

What I don't agree with is the assertion that he can't be any worse than DD. We as fans haven't seen anywhere near enough of either to make that call.

Which youth players do you feel they have misjudged?

Of course he can be worse. My point is that even the coaches won't know for certain if he would be worse or not. What I would say is even just putting in 100% effort it wouldn't be easy to be significantly worse than that last Downs performance.

  • Like 1
saintant

saintant

Posted
Posted
14 hours ago, trousers said:

Is it me or are we as a club more 'protective' of our younger talent than other clubs these days? Might be false memory syndrome but I'm sure we used to quite regularly have a 'youngster' on the bench and give our academy players more 1st team experience in general. 

I guess it happens less now because we've had a bloated squad for several seasons but it annoys me that a prolific 18 year old is seemingly not even considered for 1st team exposure, just in case they have a bad experience and it sets them back, or such like.

There are plenty of players across the footballing world that debut in top leagues at the age of 16, 17, 18.

Given our dearth of centre forward options, I say we should chuck this 18 year old lad into the deep end and see what he's got. It's not as if he's a child. 

Their route to first team is blocked generally because those clever people at SR like to bring in slightly older players who might turn into the next big thing and make a shedload of money. Unfortunately their talent for picking such players is limited.

  • Like 2
Dusic

Dusic

Posted
Posted

The coaches know if players are ready, technically, physically, tactically, mentally.

The gap between being a top player in the U18 league vs the Championship or PL is absolutely huge, as proven by multiple Saints Academy lads who have cooked at youth level and then failed to even make it in the National League.

If someone is seen as being ready I am sure they will get a chance. If they arent ready then it does way more harm to the player than good.

  • Haha 1
trousers

trousers

Posted
Posted (edited)
55 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Which youth players do you feel they have misjudged?

You're mistaking me for someone who hasn't got their tongue in their cheek... ;)

Edited by trousers
Charlie Wayman

Charlie Wayman

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

Yes you can. The coaches who've been watching these kids training and playing day in, day out will have an excellent idea if they are good enough to make the step up to senior football. So far the answer with Oyekunle seems to be no, hopefully that might change in the next couple of years.

So you trust the coaches who left out Robinson in recent matches - arguably our most effective player in the early games of the season - to have the best interests of our youngsters in mind?

Desperate!

Saint86

Saint86

Posted
Posted

Should be given a chance in the squad over Downs on current form. Whats the worse than can happen? He's as bad and we're still playing with 10men?

Note, i would argue downs is worse than playing with 10men - all he does is lose the ball, and if he wasn't on the pitch we wouldn't pass to him, which means we wouldn't stall our attacks or give the opposition the ball back...

benjii

benjii

Posted
Posted
On 06/10/2025 at 20:45, WALK DMC said:

According to Transfermarkt he is 1.75m tall. In old money that is 5ft 9in, so we can add him to our list of short forwards along with Archer and Armstrong.

Loan him to Goztepe for the bantz.

CB Fry

CB Fry

Posted
Posted

Feels like this entire thread is built on the premise that the club have the next Rooney/Walcott/Owen on their books but are wilfully refusing to play this world beating wonderkid because something something Sports Republic idiots something 

 

If he was ready for the first team he'd be in the squad.

Maybe he's just scoring lots of goals for the kids teams like billions of other young players before him and billions of young kids yet to come.

  • Like 2
Lighthouse

Lighthouse

Posted
Posted
9 hours ago, saintant said:

Their route to first team is blocked generally because those clever people at SR like to bring in slightly older players who might turn into the next big thing and make a shedload of money. Unfortunately their talent for picking such players is limited.

So you’re actually complaining about signing Fellows, Azaz and Scienza? Would you prefer another season like 2008/09?

9 hours ago, Charlie Wayman said:

So you trust the coaches who left out Robinson in recent matches - arguably our most effective player in the early games of the season - to have the best interests of our youngsters in mind?

Desperate!

Robinson has played eight first team matches already this season by the end of September, he hasn’t exactly been frozen out. It’s going to be a long season and a lot of players are going to get their chance. Still picks the team, I’m talking about the coaches who train our youth players and know which ones are good enough and which ones aren’t.

suewhistle

suewhistle

Posted
Posted
20 hours ago, Charlie Wayman said:

So you trust the coaches who left out Robinson in recent matches - arguably our most effective player in the early games of the season - to have the best interests of our youngsters in mind?

Your question doesn't make sense. It implies that they don't want him to succeed, or the team for that matter, and that it is entirely in Robinson's best interests to play. Why do you think he hasn't been played even more by the coaches, their personal whims? 

Progress isn't linear for young players, it may depend more on external factors which we don't know about, whether growth spurts or minor muscle strains or degree of physical maturity or whatever. One thing for sure is that at the professional level the degree of monitoring is comprehensive.

We have seen that overplaying players can cause issues, so perhaps they do have have _his_ best interests in mind?

 

 

  • Like 2
Greedyfly

Greedyfly

Posted
Posted
23 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Yes you can. The coaches who've been watching these kids training and playing day in, day out will have an excellent idea if they are good enough to make the step up to senior football. So far the answer with Oyekunle seems to be no, hopefully that might change in the next couple of years.

AND yet Downs continually makes the bench :classic_biggrin:

  • Like 1
LeBizzier69

LeBizzier69

Posted
Posted

The point in this argument, and i wouldn't normally think like this, is that Downs is less than effective in this team. I'd say worse than ineffective. So actually, what's the worst that can happen by giving him 5-10mins at the end of a game? That wouldn't be long enough for him to worry about not being good enough at this level, or the fans to think he's not good enough...not ready perhaps. He might surprise a few people.

You may as well play effectively with 10 men and blood a youngster in form, than play with 10 men in DD.

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